a reasonable result for Ireland – The Irish Times

The tangled dynamics involved in allocating powers to a European Commission team are as politically delicate as a game of three-dimensional chess. As EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen set about forming her second Commission, she had to strike a balance that simultaneously reconciled geographic interests with political ideology and party strength, men with women, indulged the vanity and sense of entitlement of the older states, and took into account the individual strengths of the candidates from 27 capitals.

Above all, von der Leyen wanted to present a new Commission whose composition and structure reflected the political priorities of the new term. She wanted to shift climate change away from the priority setting – which still exists – and instead put investment and a stronger defense preparedness against Russia and geopolitical rivals at the forefront. Von der Leyen called it the “Investment Commission” and repeatedly referred to Mario Draghi’s recent radical report on Europe’s weak competitiveness.

Von der Leyen seems to have largely succeeded in this. The Commission will be 40 percent female and four of the six executive vice-presidents responsible for coordination are women.

The dominant group in the European Parliament, von der Leyen’s own European People’s Party, will have 14 of the 27 commissioners, while the liberals of Renew will get five portfolios, including the important justice post held by Irishman Michael McGrath. The 136-member Socialist group will be led by Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Teresa Ribera as executive vice-president, whose major portfolio is the monitoring and coordination of competition and important environmental and economic dossiers.

However, not everything will go smoothly. To appease Italy’s far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, von der Leyen gave Raffaele Fitto the post of Vice-President and responsibility for cohesion funding. His approval by MEPs, especially the Left and the Greens, seems highly doubtful. The Parliament will probably continue its tradition of trying to remind the Commission President of his supreme authority with at least one scalp.

Ireland’s commissioner post, although not the hoped-for economic portfolio, covers two broad areas where the Commission is breaking important new ground. One is enforcing EU-wide compliance with the rule of law, particularly in Hungary. The other is legislation to force the social media giants to police themselves and the Wild West of the internet and AI. The concentration of tech companies in Ireland may well have contributed to McGrath’s appointment. This is not about agriculture or trade, traditionally seen as vital national interests, but a huge industry that he/we should be familiar with and whose regulation will be crucial for the EU as a whole in the years to come. It is not an easy portfolio.